The Source for Art & Law Since 2005

Is embedding tweets with images a copyright violation?

I have to study this opinion further, but U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest's answer of "yes" to this question seems like the correct one (and not that controversial).

Save the Presidents at Times Square NYC

For the month of Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthdays, Times Square Arts presents a project by artists Tali Keren and Alex Strada, “day in the life,” which consists of a portrait of 43 monumental busts of former American Presidents. Rescued from the site of a closing sculpture park near Williamsburg, Virginia by the entrepreneur who was hired to demolish them, the statues sit, damaged but steadfast, in the light of the sun and the darkness of night.
From the artists:
“By showing Save the Presidents as the Midnight Moment for February 2018, we are excited to bring a surreal farm and worksite in ...

Cleveland Indians Will (Mostly) Abandon Chief Wahoo Logo

After consistent protests and requests from, the Cleveland Indians have decided to phase out their use of the "Chief Wahoo" logo.
More via the NY Times, here. Thanks to Chris Rawson for the heads up on this story.

Toilet humor is easy when you get goverment handouts

The Guggenheim "toilet" prank is comical. What we don't find comical is how the curator, Nance Spector, and the Guggenheim don't seem to have a problem with the subsidies and perks the museum gets from its federally granted tax-exempt status (see bottom of p.12). Typical artistic-political gesture; all theory and no practice.

Should the Trump-commissioned border wall prototypes be national monuments?

A few nights ago someone asked me (and incidentally reminded me) about a situation where a visiting artist, Paul Chan, copied an artwork, without permission, from a Northwestern University MFA art student. Apparently there’s not much “out there” in the ether-world on this situation, but I did find this post from Christopher Howard, with ample information on the Chan-copying controversy.

The copied artwork was of the famous George Bush flight-suit banner aboard an aircraft carrier that read, “Mission Accomplished.”

A snippet,

as a visiting artist at Northwestern in spring 2006, Chan saw a work by one student in her studio that he really liked: a banner with the words “mission accomplished” on them. He told her that she should really do something with the work, which she was unsure about. The matter dropped, at least until the summer, when a Hong Kong arts center asked him to contribute a work to a benefit. He also had a solo show there. For the benefit, he re-created that same banner. But it didn’t sell. A couple months later, in the fall, Chan was asked to participate in a group show at Serpentine Gallery in London. He made an edition of twenty, again, none of which sold. (Perhaps it was the edition in China—my memory is fuzzy.) When the work was in London, he e-mailed the student artist in order to share credit (and income, if there would be any). Responding a couple weeks later, she totally freaked out. A few weeks after that, Chan was contacted by lawyers at Northwestern.

The Chris Cornell Scholarship, named for the late Soundgarden/Audioslave singer and songwriter, is being launched at the UCLA School of Law with a gift of $1 million from a coalition led by the late musician’s wife, Vicky Cornell.

“This endowment honors an influential musical artist who cared about human rights and enables others the opportunity to make a positive impact in the world,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement.

If only more visual artists did this kind of thing. More via the LA Times.

A good friend of ours, Brian Soucek, of the UC Davis School of Law, recently published a law review article answering this question. Here’s the abstract,

Almost no one thinks the government should decide what counts as art or what has aesthetic value. But the government often does so, and often, it should. State actors — from judges and legislators down to customs officials and members of local zoning boards — make aesthetic judgments every day, in areas ranging from tax and tariff law to obscenity and public-funding decisions, from historic preservation and land-use regulations to copyright, trademark, and patent law.

This Article details the breadth and surprising philosophical depth of the law’s engagement with aesthetic questions. And bucking conventional wisdom, it argues that in many areas of law, government should define artistic categories and promote aesthetic values. The usual reasons for treating aesthetic judgment as what Justice Holmes famously called a “dangerous undertaking” turn out to be bad ones. Arguments based on the expertise of judges or the subjectivity of aesthetic judgment are not just unconvincing, they are in tension with one another. And the one persuasive argument — derived from the First Amendment’s prohibition on government-imposed orthodoxies — applies only as far as the First Amendment itself does. This Article offers a framework for deciding when the First Amendment limits aesthetic judgment in law. And in doing so, it also identifies appropriate sites of aesthetic judgment — places where we need more open debate about the substantive aesthetic values we want the law to endorse.

Clancco, Clancco: The Source for Art & Law, Clancco.com, and Art & Law are trademarks owned by Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento. The views expressed on this site are those of Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento and of the artists and writers who submit to Clancco.com. They are not the views of any other organization, legal or otherwise. All content contained on or made available through Clancco.com is not intended to and does not constitute legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed, nor is anything submitted to Clancco.com treated as confidential.